Category: New Research Page 39 of 67

 

Two of the world’s coolest lizards are blue anoles, male A. allisoni from Cuba and both sexes of the fabled blue anole of Gorgona (A. gorgonae). Why the blue? Heck if I know. You can see a male allisoni on a palm from a great distance, so it amazes me that they can survive. Seems clear that they must be trying to advertise their presence. On the other hand, I’m told that A. gorgonae can be very hard to spot when one looks up toward the canopy, where the species hangs out. In this instance, the blue may actual serve for crypsis. Who knows?

Turns out that there are lots of blue animals and the reason for their blueness, as well as the mechanism by which it is produced, is not well known. Kate Umbers has just published a nice review in Journal of Zoology on all things blue, and it’s a worthwhile read, even if she didn’t mention anoles, or even hardly any lizards at all. Among other interesting tidbits, she points out that dichotomizing colors as structural or pigmentary is somewhat misleading, because both pigments and structure can work together to produce blue colors. Also, blue-footed boobies’ feet are bluer when they’re well-fed, and female boobies invest more in their offspring if they have brighter blue feet.  Who knows what interesting blue-related aspects of natural history remain to be uncovered in anoles?

Many anoles have blue eyes as well, and this is a trait that seems to pop up repeatedly throughout the clade, though I have no data on this. I wonder what’s up with that.

As a final bonus, here’s a video of a blue knight anole! (and here’s a previous AA post on the same). The video itself isn’t so sharp, but it’s a blue knight anole!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwHhyqTmqrk&feature=youtu.be&a

Thanks to HerpDigest, a regular email compendium of herpetological news, here is a press release on a recent paper in Global Change Biology:

A new Dartmouth College study finds human-caused climate change may have little impact on many species of tropical lizards, contradicting a host of recent studies that predict their widespread extinction in a rapidly warming planet.

Most predictions that tropical cold-blooded animals, especially forest lizards, will be hard hit by climate change are based on global-scale measurements of environmental temperatures, which miss much of the fine-scale variation in temperature that individual animals experience on the ground, said the article’s lead author, Michael Logan, a Ph.D. student in ecology and evolutionary biology.

To address this disconnect, the Dartmouth researchers measured environmental temperatures at extremely high resolution and used those measurements to project the effects of climate change on the running abilities of four populations of lizard from the Bay Islands of Honduras. Field tests on the captured lizards, which were released unharmed, were conducted between 2008 and 2012.

Previous studies have suggested that open-habitat tropical lizard species are likely to invade forest habitat and drive forest species to extinction, but the Dartmouth research suggests that the open-habitat populations will not invade forest habitat and may actually benefit from predicted warming for many decades. Conversely, one of the forest species studied should experience reduced activity time as a result of warming, while two others are unlikely to experience a significant decline in performance.

The overall results suggest that global-scale predictions generated using low-resolution temperature data may overestimate the vulnerability of many tropical lizards to climate change.

“Whereas studies conducted to date have made uniformly bleak predictions for the survival of tropical forest lizards around the globe, our data show that four similar species, occurring in the same geographic region, differ markedly in their vulnerabilities to climate warming,” the authors wrote. “Moreover, none appear to be on the brink of extinction. Considering that these populations occur over extremely small geographic ranges, it is possible that many tropical forest lizards, which range over much wider areas, may have even greater opportunity to escape warming.”

Story Source: The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Dartmouth College, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

In a monumental undertaking, Alexander Pyron and colleagues have just produced a molecular phylogeny for 4,161 species of lizards (including snakes), more than 40% of the 9400+ species described to date. The paper, now available online at BMC Evolutionary Biology, is a blockbuster, containing 28 figures, one an overview of the entire phylogeny and the remainder walking through lizard-life one clade at a time.

The analysis is based on sequence data from 12 commonly used and phylogenetically informative molecular markers (seven nuclear genes, five mitochondrial). On average, 12,896 base pairs of sequence data are available per species and, as is necessary in an endeavor such as this, the data set is incomplete, with an average of only 19% of base pair data being available for any given species.

The results are generally very concordant with recent molecular phylogenies, perhaps not surprising given that these data have been used in the most recent studies. The overall picture of lizard phylogeny is little-changed from what we’ve seen in recent molecular phylogenetic publications, but there are a few surprises at lower levels. You’ll have to peruse the paper yourself to check out your favorite group, as there’s way too much in it to go through here.

Of course, what readers of AA really want to know is: what does the phylogeny say about anole relationships? And, in fact, the results are for the most part concordant with previous studies. Perhaps surprising to many readers, the analysis supports the monophyly of the eight clades recognized by Nicholson et al. as separate genera. Well, almost. In contradiction to the paper’s statement, Nicholson et al.’s Anolis is not monophyletic because A. argenteolus is placed as the sister-taxon to the Xiphosurus clade (which contains Chamaeleolis and the ricordii group), rather than occurring with other species placed into the restricted Anolis. This is an odd finding, contradicting both Nicholson et al. and the Alfoldi et al. genome paper analysis, with the implication that the transparent lower eyelids of A. argenteolus and its putative sister taxon A. lucius are not homologous, but I don’t buy it. Other than that, I didn’t find anything too exciting in this phylogeny, though further scrutiny (it’s enormous) may turn up interesting relationships I didn’t notice.

Other than this one exception, however, the Nicholson et al. eight fare well. Nonetheless, the authors of this paper do not follow the Nicholson et al. taxonomic suggestion of subdivision, stating: “since Anolis is monophyletic as previously defined, we retain that definition here…for continuity with the recent literature.”

Probably the most interesting finding concerns the closest relative to anoles, a topic of great uncertainty. This analysis strongly confirms that Polychrus is not the sister group to Anolis; rather, Polychrus appears related to the hoplocercids, which means that it’s dewlap must be convergent with the anole flasher. To whom, then, are anoles related? The answer appears to be the basiliscines (Corytophanidae in more modern parlance), the morphologically diverse and fascinating neotropical group containing not only basilisks, but also Corytophanes and the little-known Laemanctus.

Two last points: first, as noted above, there’s lots of missing data. Clearly, this is not the last word and, in particular, the question of the sister taxon to Anolis cries out for further study. Second, as the authors note, this paper will be of inestimable value in conducting comparative studies spanning the entire lizard radiation. To facilitate such, the authors have made available a Newick file containing the phylogeny (if you don’t know what this means, suffice to say that it’s a very helpful move that will make it easy to use this phylogeny in comparative studies).

Now, let’s get out and sequence the other 5000 species and finish the job!

[Editor’s Update, March 18, 2014]: I was mistaken in saying that the Pyron et al. tree found only one inconsistency with the Nicholson et al. genera. In addition to the exception noted above, Nicholson et al. place christophei in their Chamaelinorops clade, but Pyron et al. find it allying with species that Nicholson et al. put in Xiphosurus.

My recently published paper in Herpetological Conservation and Biology about the effects of human land use on Anolis carolinensis (abstract below) came from an exciting season of field research. The summer of 2010 in Palmetto State Park in Gonzales, Texas was my first field research experience, where I took my first steps of many (little did I know) into the world of Anole biology. I worked under the supervision of Michele Johnson with an awesome lab group: Tara Whittle (our lab technician), Alisa Dill, Michelle Sparks, and Chelsea Stehle. Yes, I was the only male, and yes, that means I did get a tent all to myself. I took so many things from this experience, both scientific and not, that started my future as a field biologist.

We spent our days out in the hot Texas summer heat, catching, measuring, and observing our new friends, the green anoles. Each of us had our own research to work on that focused on various aspects of green anoles, and so we divided up our field time amongst our projects, helping each other collect data. We designated plots throughout the state park so we could compare the anoles in those plots. I studied the ways that human land use, such as clearing land for buildings, or constructing trails through natural habitat, impacts the lizards’ prey and the lizards themselves. While we did not find any clear trends showing that human disturbance impacts insects, which in turn affects the anoles, we were able to show that human-disturbed plots had higher insect biomass. This would seem beneficial to the anoles, who would theoretically have higher body condition (BMIs: SVL divided by mass) because of the greater amount of available food. However, we found that lizards (females in this case) in plots with greater levels of disturbance had lower BMIs.

The non-straightforward results from my study reflect the complexity of the relationship between humans and the environment; our impacts on the world do not always easily appear. I am taking what I have learned from this experience and am continuing to use anoles as a system to study human impacts on the environment at a local scale. This fall, I will attend the University of Rhode Island and study anoles with Jason Kolbe.

Abstract:

ANDREW C. BATTLES, TARA K.WHITTLE, CHELSEA M. STEHLE, AND MICHELE A. JOHNSON

Abstract.—Lizards frequently occur in disturbed habitats, yet the impacts of human activity on lizard biology remain understudied. Here, we examined the effects of land use on the body condition of Green Anole lizards (Anolisvcarolinensis) and the availability of their arthropod prey. Because human activity generally alters abiotic and biotic habitat features, we predicted that areas modified by humans would differ from areas with natural, intact vegetation in arthropod abundance and biomass. In addition, because biological communities in high use areas are often relatively homogenized, we predicted that higher human land use would result in lower prey diversity. Regardless of land use, we also predicted that areas with greater prey availability and diversity would support lizards with higher body condition. We studied anoles in six plots with varying levels of human modification in Palmetto State Park in Gonzales County, Texas. We quantified arthropod abundance, biomass, and diversity in each plot via transects and insect traps. We also determined lizard body condition using mass:length ratios and residuals, fat pad mass, and liver lipid content. We found that, although arthropod abundance did not differ across plots, arthropod biomass was higher in natural than in disturbed plots. Diversity indices showed that the plots varied in their arthropod community diversity, but not in relation to disturbance. Female (but not male) lizard body condition differed across plots, with body condition higher in natural plots than disturbed plots. Together, these results suggest that land use is associated with lizard body condition, but not through a direct relationship with prey availability.

Here at AA, we’re a bit obsessed with lizards with things on their noses, technically called “rostral appendages,” and sometimes, depending on shape, “horns.” A lot of this interest comes Anolis proboscis, the horned anole of Ecuador, about which we’ve written much before.

Almost as cool as horned anoles (really, that’s an unfair standard) is the Sri Lankan lizard genus Ceratophora, which contains three species with rostral (or nasal) appendages, and two other species that are appendage-less. In a recent paper in Journal of Zoology, Johnston et al. discuss the evolution of these appendages. It’s long been debated whether the appendages evolved independently in each species or once in the ancestral Ceratophora, followed by loss in the two nasally-naked species. By combining analyses of phylogeny (which produces somewhat inconclusive reconstructions of ancestral phenotype), morphology and allometry, the authors conclude that the appendages most likely evolved independently in each of the three species. Moreover, they suggest the blob-like appendage of C. tennenti (bottom photo) may have evolved for crypsis, but the more horn-like appendages of the other two species probably resulted from sexual selection.

While on the topic of nasal horns, I decided to see if there are any new photos of the other horned anole, A. phyllorhinus, on the web, and indeed there are. See below. The natural history of this species, which likely evolved its horn independently of A. proboscis, awaits further study.

The number of described species of reptiles has increased extraordinarily in recent times. In a fascinating recent article, Pincheira-Donoso and colleagues have catalogued this increase, as well as describing the taxonomic distribution of present-day reptile diversity. They report that since 2000, the number of described species of lizards has increased by 1164, a remarkable increase of 26%. They also point out that reptile diversity among clades is right-skewed, with most genera containing relatively few species and a few containing a lot. And, of course, they highlight everyone’s favorite genus, Anolis, as one of the largest outliers.

Speaking of anoles, AA wondered how anole diversity has changed since 2000. Daniel Pincheira-Donoso kindly provided the answer, with information provided by co-author Peter Uetz. Since 2000, 42 species have been described, bringing the total in March 2012 (when data were compiled) to 384 (the list of new species from 2000 til the present appears below). That’s only a 12% increase, lagging behind lizards in general, but more on par with the description rate for snakes, which has increased 16% over that period. As AA readers are well aware, however, new anole species are being described at a high rate (e.g., 1,2) and, indeed, Uetz’s Reptile DataBase now puts the number at 391.

What’s behind this incredible burst of species description, both in anoles and more broadly? Some of it is the result of exploration and discovery of truly new, previously unknown, lizards. But most of the increase—in my humble estimation—is the result of the taxonomic splitting of previously widespread species into multiple species. Systematics goes through phases of “lumping” and “splitting” and the field in general seems to be experiencing a massive phase of splitting at the moment. In some cases, this is the result of taxa being differentiated on the basis of morphological characters. However, most is the result of the discovery of genetic differentiation among populations. A naysayer might be prompted to say that this has gone to far, that species are sometimes being described on the basis of minor, insubstantial differentiation. It will be interesting to see if and how much the pendulum swings back.

Regardless, one of the reasons that anole diversity has not increased as much as that in other taxa is that anole systematists—to date—have been restrained in their splitting, particularly in the West Indies. Substantial genetic diversity has been found among populations in many anole species, differentiation so great that many would have described four, six, or eight species from single widespread Caribbean taxa. This, of course, may change in the future, and the diversity of Caribbean anoles may skyrocket.

 

Below are the abstract of the Pincheira-Donoso paper and then the list of new anoles described from 2000-2012. And when you’re done reading those, check out Daniel Pincheira-Donoso’s website, with much information on Daniel and his work on Liolaemus.

Abstract:

Reptiles are one of the most ecologically and evolutionarily remarkable groups of living organisms, having successfully colonized most of the planet, including the oceans and some of the harshest and more environmentally unstable ecosystems on earth. Here, based on a complete dataset of all the world’s diversity of living reptiles, we analyse lineage taxonomic richness both within and among clades, at different levels of the phylogenetic hierarchy. We also analyse the historical tendencies in the descriptions of new reptile species from Linnaeus to March 2012. Although (non-avian) reptiles are the second most species-rich group of amniotes after birds, most of their diversity (96.3%) is concentrated in squamates (59% lizards, 35% snakes, and 2% amphisbaenians). In strong contrast, turtles (3.4%), crocodilians (0.3%), and tuataras (0.01%) are far less diverse. In terms of species discoveries, most turtles and crocodilians were described early, while descriptions of lizards, snakes and amphisbaenians are multimodal with respect to time. Lizard descriptions, in particular, have reached unprecedented levels during the last decade. Finally, despite such remarkably asymmetric distributions of reptile taxonomic diversity among groups, we found that the distributions of lineage richness are consistently right-skewed, with most clades (monophyletic families and genera) containing few lineages (monophyletic genera and species, respectively), while only a few have radiated greatly (notably the families Colubridae and Scincidae, and the lizard genera Anolis and Liolaemus). Therefore, such consistency in the frequency distribution of richness among clades and among phylogenetic levels suggests that the nature of reptile biodiversity is fundamentally fractal (i.e., it is scale invariant). We then compared current reptile diversity with the global reptile diversity and taxonomy known in 1980. Despite substantial differences in the taxonomies (relative to 2012), the patterns of lineage richness remain qualitatively identical, hence reinforcing our conclusions about the fractal nature of reptile biodiversity.

New Anole Species:

Anolis cusuco (MCCRANIE, KÖHLER & WILSON 2000)

Anolis kreutzi (MCCRANIE, KÖHLER & WILSON 2000)

Anolis toldo FONG & GARRIDO 2000

Anolis hobartsmithi (NIETO-MONTES DE OCA 2001)

Anolis ocelloscapularis (KÖHLER, MCCRANIE & WILSON 2001)

Anolis oporinus GARRIDO & HEDGES 2001

Anolis roatanensis (KÖHLER & MCCRANIE 2001)

Anolis terueli NAVARRO, FERNANDEZ & GARRIDO 2001

Anolis wampuensis (MCCRANIE & KÖHLER 2001)

Anolis yoroensis (MCCRANIE, NICHOLSON & KÖHLER 2001)

Anolis zeus (KÖHLER & MCCRANIE 2001)

Anolis ruibali NAVARRO & GARRIDO 2004

Anolis paravertebralis (BERNAL-CARLO & ROZE 2005)

Anolis umbrivagus (BERNAL-CARLO & ROZE 2005)

Anolis anatoloros (UGUETO, RIVAS, BARROS, SÁNCHEZ-PACHECO & GARCÍA-PÉREZ 2007)

Anolis datzorum (KÖHLER, PONCE, SUNYER & BATISTA 2007)

Anolis gruuo (KÖHLER, PONCE, SUNYER & BATISTA 2007)

Anolis kunayalae (HULEBAK, POE, IBÁNEZ & WILLIAMS 2007)

Anolis magnaphallus (POE & IBÁNEZ 2007)

Anolis pseudokemptoni (KÖHLER, PONCE, SUNYER & BATISTA 2007)

Anolis pseudopachypus (KÖHLER, PONCE, SUNYER & BATISTA 2007)

Anolis williamsmittermeierorum POE & YAÑEZ-MIRANDA 2007

Anolis apletophallus (KÖHLER & SUNYER 2008)

Anolis campbelli (KÖHLER & SMITH 2008)

Anolis cryptolimifrons (KÖHLER & SUNYER 2008)

Anolis cuscoensis (POE, YAÑEZ-MIRANDA & LEHR 2008)

Anolis soinii (POE & YAÑEZ-MIRANDA 2008)

Anolis anchicayae (POE, VELASCO, MIYATA & WILLIAMS 2009)

Anolis ibanezi (POE, LATELLA, RYAN & SCHAAD 2009)

Anolis lyra (POE, VELASCO, MIYATA & WILLIAMS 2009)

Anolis monteverde (KÖHLER 2009)

Anolis morazani (TOWNSEND & WILSON 2009)

Anolis anoriensis (VELASCO, GUTIÉRREZ-CÁRDENAS & QUINTERO-ANGEL 2010) Anolis charlesmyersi (KÖHLER 2010)

Anolis osa (KÖHLER, DEHLING & KÖHLER 2010)

Anolis otongae (AYALA-VARELA & VELASCO 2010)

Anolis podocarpus (AYALA-VARELA & TORRES-CARVAJAL 2010)

Anolis unilobatus (KÖHLER & VESELY 2010)

Anolis benedikti (LOTZKAT, BIENENTREU, HERTZ & KÖHLER 2011)

Anolis tenorioensis (KÖHLER 2011)

Anolis sierramaestrae (HOLÁŇOVÁ, REHÁK & FRYNTA 2012)

Anolis ginaelisae (LOTZKAT, HERTZ, BIENENTREU & KÖHLER 2013)

 

Academic conferences are important venues for researchers to learn what is new and exciting in science and to present our more recent work. The annual meetings for the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) is one major conference drawing over 2,000 scientists from around the world. This conference is always held in January and usually features an embarrassment of anoles. The 2012 SICB conference in Charleston, South Carolina featured many interesting talks on anoles, ranging from discussions on new eve-devo resources in this emerging model system to studies of behavioral ecology and thermal physiology (1, 2). SICB 2013 was recently held in San Francisco, and those of us following research in Anolis lizards had plenty to see and learn as there were 18 talks and posters featuring anoles. I attended many of these and summarized the findings as best I could in several AA posts this past January (1, 2, 3, 4).

As it turns out, SICB is not the only conference where anole biologists congregate in large numbers. Another major venue for learning what’s new in Anolis research is the joint meeting of the Society for Systematic Biology (SSB), Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE), and the American Society of Naturalists (ASN). This meeting is generally referred to as the Evolution conference, for short.

This year the Evolution conference will be held in Snowbird, Utah in the last week of June. Two days ago the organizers released the online program for the conference. A quick search using “Anolis” or “anole” as keywords revealed seven talks about these lizards. I’ll be attending this conference (and speaking!), and I’ll be getting updates on each of these studies onto the Anole Annals as much as I can, so stay tuned for more! In the meanwhile, here are titles for all the talks I found about Anolis. If there are more out there that I missed, please let me know!

(1) Title: Natural selection, developmental trajectories, and quantitative genetics underlying intraspecific variation in sexual dimorphism in an island lizard.
Authors: Cox, Robert; Daugherty, Christopher; Price, Jennifer; McGlothlin, Joel.

(2) Title: Extreme sex differences in the development of body size and sexual signals are mediated by hormonal pleiotropy in a dimorphic lizard.
Authors: Cox, Christian L.; Hanninen , Amanda F; Cox, Robert M.

(3) Title: Genomics of local adaptation and colorful pigmentation in Anolis lizards.
Authors: Crawford, Nicholas; McGreevy, Jr., Thomas; Mullen, Sean; Schneider, Christopher.

(4) Title: Identification of sex specific molecular markers from reduced-representation genome sequencing.
Authors: Gamble, Tony; Zarkower, David.

(5) Title: Natural selection on the thermal performance curve of Anolis sagrei.
Authors: Logan, Michael L; Cox, Robert M; Calsbeek, Ryan G.

(6) Title: Testing for simultaneous divergence and gene flow in sister-pairs of physiologically divergent Anolis lizards from Puerto Rico.
Author: McElroy, Matthew.

(7) Title: Divergence in coloration and the evolution of reproductive isolation in the Anolis marmoratus species complex.
Authors: Muñoz, Martha; Crawford, Nicholas; McGreevy, Jr., Thomas; Schneider, Christopher.

Unlike the extensive within-island speciation that anoles have undergone in the Greater Antilles, we have no evidence that the same has occurred in the Lesser Antilles. Rather, Lesser Antillean islands that contain two species are thought to be the result of dispersal events rather than in situ cladogenesis. Despite such low species diversity, however, phenotypic diversity on many of these islands certainly is not lacking. Some Lesser Antillean anoles exhibit spectacular geographic variation in head, body and dewlap colouration and pattern, as well as body size and scalation, that appears to be adaptive to different environments. So, while this variation has not led to complete speciation in any Lesser Antillean anole, is there some evidence that these phenotypically divergent populations are at some stage of the speciation process? Also, how does phenotypic divergence occur on these smaller islands when there seems to be little opportunity for geographical isolation?

AA contributor, Martha Muñoz and colleagues tackle these very questions in a recent paper in Molecular Ecology. Muñoz et al. focus on the stunning phenotypic diversity of the Anolis marmoratus complex on Guadeloupe, which has been categorised into 12 subspecies. On Grande Terre, in particular, two subspecies can be found: A. m. speciosus inhabits mesic habitats in the southwest and A. m. inornatus inhabits the xeric lowlands of the north and east. Males share a yellow-orange coloured dewlap but differ in head, body and eye ring colouration, while females and juveniles of the two subspecies are similarly drab in colour.

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Ecologists are increasingly recognizing the myriad connections not only among species within an ecosystem, but between species in different ecosystems. Case in point: seaweed often washes ashore, and it affects leaves on the plants found near the shoreline. How’s that, you might ask? Well, the seaweed decays and releases nutrients that act as fertilizer, increasing the growth of land plants. That’s good for the plants, but it also makes their leaves more tasty, and hence plant-eating insects are attracted and cause more damage to the leaves.

That seems straightforward enough, but then it gets more complicated. As the seaweed decays, it attracts lots of insects. And the insects, in turn, attract lizards. And, in fact, if you happen to be studying this process on small islands in the Bahamas, as Jonah Piovia-Scott and a team from UC-Davis were, then those lizards are our favorites, brown anoles. And if there are more brown anoles around, then they’ll eat more of the herbivorous insects that plague the land plants, and so the washed-up seaweed actually decrease the damage to land plant leaves, thanks to the helpful consumption of the anoles.

Except…maybe the lizards will be so delighted by the seaweed that they’ll spend all of their time there, eating the insects on the seaweed, and thus neglecting the insects on the landplants, so now the effect of seaweed on the land plants becomes negative again.

So which is it? That’s what Piovia-Scott et al. set out to discover, and they’ve just reported the results in a paper in Oecologia. And the diagram to the left explains it succinctly. Seaweed increases nitrogen in the leaves, which increases herbivory. Seaweed also increases lizard density, which decreases herbivory, though the negative effect isn’t as great as the positive effect of the nitrogen. Moreover, seaweed also causes lizards to shift their diet, which has a small (and statistically non-significant) positive effect on herbivory because the lizards aren’t eating as many of the land plant herbivores. Bottom line: seaweed increases leaf damage; lizards can’t prevent it, in part because their effects are schizophrenic: more lizards, but eating fewer herbivores.

Interestingly, these results are opposite of what the same team of authors found in a study we discussed two years ago. The difference was that in that study, a big pile of seaweed was laid out at one time and the results were followed over a short period, whereas this study followed natural seaweed deposition and compared sites differing in the amount of seaweed washed ashore, following their sites for a lengthier period of time.

One last point: how did the researchers document that the lizards were switching diet? Not from sitting around and watching the lizards, but by measuring the carbon isotope ratios in their tails. Marine vegetation tends to have higher ratios of Carbon-13 than terrestrial sources, and so insects feeding on plants from different areas will, in turn, have different ratios, which means that, in turn, one can look at the Carbon-13 ratios in lizard tissue and get a sense of from which ecosystem they’re deriving their carbon. And in this case, the more seaweed, the higher the ratio. Pretty nifty!

 

Six large anoles of the Dactyloa clade occur in western Panama. In their explorations, Lotzkat and colleagues have collected all of them, and have just published a paper in Zootaxa reviewing these species. Their phylogenetic analyses based both on DNA and morphological characters confirm the existence of the six taxa, but also find geographically-oriented genetic differentiation in two species. In combination with morphological data, the authors split A. microtus into two species, the new one under the name A. ginaelisae.

The paper includes a nice review of all the species including spiffy color plates (see A. ibanezi below as an example) and natural history notes (short take: they’re all arboreal and almost all individuals have been caught at night). A key is also included.

One last note. The derivation of the new specific epithet gianaelisae is touching: “Sebastian Lotzkat dedicates this exceptionally beautiful new species to his even more enchanting fiancée Gina Elisa Moog, who has made more than a third of his life worthwhile by now, in deepest gratitude for that wonderful time and pleasant anticipation of a mutual future.”

Abstract: “Six species of giant alpha anoles of the genus Dactyloa are known to occur in western Panama: Dactyloa casildae, D. frenata, D. ibanezi, D. insignis, D. kunayalae, and D. microtus. Based on own material collected along the highlands in Bocas del Toro, Chiriquí, and Veraguas provinces and the Comarca Ngöbe-Buglé of western Panama, we review their variation in morphological characters and the 16S rRNA mitochondrial gene. Our results support all six nominal taxa, but reveal considerable genetic differentiation between populations of the two highland species, D. casildae and D. microtus, respectively, from different localities. Correlated morphological differences confirm the existence of a cryptic species among populations currently assigned to D. microtus, which we describe as Dactyloa ginaelisae sp. nov. We provide point distribution maps, morphology and color descriptions, photographs in life, conservation status assessments, and an identification key for all seven species.”